1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for managing purchasing data, and more particularly, to methods and systems for managing purchasing data of a plurality of entities in order to facilitate the creation and operation of purchasing consortiums.
2. Description of the Related Art
Purchasing consortiums make it possible to achieve better prices on purchased goods and services on behalf of the member entities of the consortium, such as individual companies or organizations, through volume negotiating and buying. However, to successfully form and operate a purchasing consortium, it is important to have an accurate picture of the purchasing needs of the member entities.
Specifically, data obtained with respect to the member entities should include the total amount spent by each entity in the consortium, the quality and types of purchases made by each entity, and the suppliers from whom each entity purchases goods or services. All of the data from the individual entities must be compiled into a portfolio, which contains valuable information about the purchasing activities of the consortium as a whole. This data includes the total amount spent by the consortium members on each type of good or service, as well as the degree of supplier concentration among member entities.
Most companies and organizations have a vast amount of valuable purchasing data in their back-office systems. However, this data is often difficult to access, because the systems in which the data resides were designed for other purposes. Even if it were possible to easily extract this data, analysis of the purchasing data of the member entities would remain difficult, due to the thousands of ways those entities structure their data and categorize their purchases. Even within a single entity itself, each department may structure this purchasing data differently.
Further, some of the purchasing data may be incomplete, or may contain inaccurate or incorrectly entered information. In this case, even if the data can be extracted, it would be difficult to determine which entities use the same products as well as the same suppliers of those products. If the consortium cannot determine matching products and suppliers amongst the member entities, then the consortium cannot successfully utilize its volume leverage to obtain better prices for its members.
Thus, in order to facilitate the creation and operation of a purchasing consortium, there is a need for a system that can obtain purchasing data from a variety of member entities (as well as the departments within those entities) and organize that data so as to clearly display what products and services are purchased by the member entities and from whom these products and services are purchased. Further, there is a need for such a system to be able to analyze the purchasing data to obtain information used to negotiate better prices on products and services purchased by member entities of the consortium.